The Supreme Court S Place in the West

Sampson 1

The Supreme Court’s Place in the West

Reginald Sampson

Government and Economics

Mr. Gillis

March 22, 2001

The Supreme Court is the culmination of a judicial tradition dating back to ancient Rome.[1] While the Romans were not the only ancient people to originate a long-lasting judicial tradition,[2] no other people has exercised so strong an influence on the legal structures of the modern West.[3] The value of the Roman tradition, however, has not always been undisputed. At the turn of the twentieth-century, a popular movement in Britain attempted to alter allegedly unjust aspects of the Roman heritage.[4] Though the complaints of the movement are now known to be unfounded,[5] there remain questions about the place of the Roman tradition in the modern world.[6] One of the most powerful approaches to these questions is that of Andrew F. Rolle, author of California: A History. Rolle writes, "If the West is the best, then California is the best political body, for none is more western than California (of course, Alaska and Hawaii do not count). And if the Supreme Court is the culmination of the Western judicial tradition (hence "Supreme"), then its rightful place is not Washington, but California, the most western of Western places."[7] Following the publication of California, the most persuasive statement of the opposition came from Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston.[8] Hurston's influence ebbed, however, when Harper's published an article calling her work "improvised, explosive, and divisive,"[9] and Dan Barry, writing for The New York Times, noted in passing that Dust Tracks is an autobiography of an author who never lived in California.[10]

Bibliography

Barry, Dan. "A Mill Closes, and a Hamlet Fades to Black." The New York Times, February 16, 2001, sec. A.

Bissell, Tom. "Improvised, Explosive, and Divisive." Harper's, January 2006, 41-54.

Coe, Michael D., and Mark Van Stone. Reading the Maya Glyphs. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

Guerra, Tonino. Abandoned Places. Translated by Adria Bernandi. Barcelona: Guernica, 1999.

Hunt, Lynn, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosewein, R. Po-chia Hsia, and Bonnie G. Smith. The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.

Hurston, Zora Neale. "From Dust Tracks on a Road." In The Norton Book of American Autobiography, edited by Jay Parini, 33-43. New York: Norton, 1999.

The Men's League Handbook on Women's Suffrage. London, 1912.

Poston, Ted. A First Draft of History. Edited by Kathleen A. Hauke. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000.

Rehnquist, William H. The Supreme Court: A History. New York: Knopf, 2001.

Rolle, Andrew F. California: A History. 5th ed. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1998.

[1] William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court: A History (New York: Knopf, 2001), 204.

[2] Michael D. Coe and Mark Van Stone. Reading the Maya Glyphs (London: Thames and Hudson, 2002), 129-30.

[3] Lynn Hunt and others, The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005) 541.

[4]The Men's League Handbook on Women's Suffrage (London, 1912), 23.

[5]Ibid., 54-61.

[6] Tonino Guerra, Abandoned Places, trans. Adria Bernardi (Barcelona, Guernica, 1999), 71.

[7] Andrew F. Rolle, California: A History, 5th ed. (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1998), 243.

[8] Zora Neale Hurston, "From Dust Tracks on a Road, " in The Norton Book of American Autobiography, ed. Jay Parini (New York: Norton, 1999), 336.

[9] Tom Bissell, "Improvised, Explosive, and Divisive," Harper's, January 2006, 42.

[10] Dan Barry, "A Mill Closes, and a Hamlet Fades to Black," The New York Times, February 16, 2001, sec. A.